Bert's Trip to the Philippines, Part 3

March 20, Bocaue, Bulacan

The Myna Bird

The night after the party, I decided to accept the invitation of a friend's family to spend the night at their big house in Bocaue. My two other sisters and I were driven to their house which was not too far from the convent. Actually it was just within walking distance, but we were tired and sleepy and looking forward to a good night's sleep in an air-conditioned room.

The biological daily alarm clock embedded in my brain makes me wake up at six o'clock in the morning no matter what time I go to bed the night before. The next day, while everybody was still asleep, I tiptoed down the veranda on the way to the kitchen which was on the other side of the big house. Then I heard this whistling sound, the sound of a guy admiring a sexy woman walking by. You know how it sounds, right? Intrigued, I searched around the corner until I found this myna bird in a cage at the hallway. To my surprise, this bird started to talk. To me, I guess, because we were the only ones in there.

"Pangit," the bird said.

Startled, I shot back, "Pangit ka rin!"

"Gago," the bird retorted.

"Gago ka rin," I said.

The bird kept quiet for a minute. When I turned around, she asked, "Kumain ka na?"

I didn't answer, but started to walk to the kitchen. The bird asked again: "Kumain ka na? Kumain ka na?"

Unbeknownst to me, we were being watched by the katulong at the kitchen. He was laughing like crazy when I saw him. Over a cup of coffee, he told me that the bird could also swear and say some other bad words, but denied training her those exact words.

After another cup, I decided to walk back to the convent, which was near the main thoroughfare. This morning, the streets were already buzzing with pedicabs, jeepneys and motorcycles. I walked around the plaza in search of the best pan de sal in town. I found what I was looking for, a big pan de sal roll with a crusty outside, but soft bread inside, two for five pesos. This was the closest bread I could find that was similar to the ones I used to eat from Hagonoy, Bulacan where my father grew up. For some reason, a few years back, I had a craving for it. And it went on for years and years. And I promised my self I would search and taste this pan de sal again during this trip. (Another search was for the best siopao, but that is a different story.)

I didn't have any cash with me--pesos anyway--and the tindera would not accept cents or dollars. I told her who I was, and if it was possible, to charge it to the convent, but she just looked at me as if I was from another planet. So I had to go to the convent and look for relatives I could borrow money from. After I got my cash, I went back and bought a couple pan de sal. I didn't have to eat much, just to taste it again and confirm this was the same pan de sal I was dreaming of.

Heaven is different for different people. When I got back to the convent, I thought I was in heaven. Prepared and waiting for me on the breakfast table were packages of white carabao milk/cheese (kesong puti) and freshly brewed coffee from Batangas (kapeng barako). I quickly polished off both, with the help of the pan de sal, and headed back to the big house where I suspected our hosts were also preparing breakfast for us. And of course, I told the people at the convent NOT to tell the others that I already had breakfast there. Why? When you find heaven, wouldn't it be better if you find two of them? Sira ba ang ulo nila!

This was Tuesday morning. And on Wednesday, we would board a Cebu Pacific Airlines flight headed for Boracay.

More to come.

Bert's Trip to the Philippines, Part 2

Manila, here I come.

After 14 hours up in the sky, after three movies (one of them in Tagalog, with English subtitles), after two hot meals and several snacks, after numerous drinks including white and red wine, after a few hours of nap time, the plane finally landed at Ninoy Aquino International Airport. It was the smoothest plane ride I had ever had. I don't think the captain put on the "fasten your seatbelt" sign more than half a dozen times during the entire flight. Congratulations, Captain Medina and crew. And say "Hi!" to Josephine.

The time was 10:21 a.m. Hot and humid, of course. (By the way, one big change I noticed was all the employees at the airport were courteous, helpful, dedicated, and honest and always with a smile on their faces. And they were not even asking or hinting for a tip. A huge change from what I remembered five years ago during my last travels.) Thank you, thank you very much. (My decision whether to fly or not to fly PAL again will be revealed in a subsequent part of this series.)

Another hour of waiting for the two balikbayan boxes of assorted personal items and padalas, and I was finally in an air-conditioned van plying and squeezing between jeepneys, cars, taxis and trucks, buses and pedicabs joining this controlled mayhem of misdirected direction called Manila traffic . My only regret was, I was not able to record any of this to show to my American friends. Amazing, isn't it?

Since it was almost lunch time, my sister-in-law suggested to try the eateries at Serendra. Who was I to argue? They don't take dollars, so my money was safe. We went to Conti's. (A few days later, my other group of barkada treated me to a dinner at Duo. But that's another story.)

The purpose of my travel was to attend my parents' 65th wedding anniversary celebration which was done at Bocaue, Bulacan where my oldest brother is the parish priest. He made all the preparations and executions. It was the celebration of the century for us. How many families are lucky enough to celebrate what we did? Not many. Time to count our blessings.

Instead of narrating the events by chronological order, I will just offer observations and comments, in no particular order.

Samut-Samut

The night before, I did something I have not done in my almost 60 years. I had a manicure! Wowee! The manicurista was there to do house calls and when she was done with my sisters, she asked me if I want one too. Why not? I was on my third bottle of San Miguel Pale Pilsen by then. And it was for less than a dollar! How can you beat that? Don't they charge $40 for this service in L.A.? (But you get to keep the entire bottle of nail polish, I was told. Big deal.)

Three of my college buddies, picked me up at Quezon City, and we all drove to Bocaue. Another one called in to give his regrets. These three guys are still full of fun, and I just kinda listened to their exchanges of recent crazy happenings. If other people would just listen to their conversations and not see them, they would not suspect that these are semi-senior citizens (one of them, at least is not 60 years old yet) who are serious with their jobs, careers, and lives. Puro kalokohan pa rin, sabi nga, after all these years.

Speaking of seniors, we were at my brother's convent office/parlor drinking San Mig Light (that will always be the "basaang gilagid" venue) when people were coming and going who saw us there. More than one person thought we were bishops from other dioceses invited by my brother. Can you imagine if any one of them offered to kiss our college rings? It might be the first of "many."

More than 250 guests attended. We had the proverbial fatted calf, five lechons, a dozen adobong pato and other stuff. The finale was the fireworks display; after all, isn't this Bocaue, the Philippine capital of Fireworks? As you may have guessed, 65 rockets were launched in the air. It was almost midnight when the party ended, but the "three bishops" left earlier than that. And guess what? With all the food and drinks, I was not able to eat or drink a lot. I was busy attending to relatives and friends, taking pictures, and generally visiting. And thank goodness everybody had a camera, because with all the confusion on my part, I failed to take a picture of my parents. Lagot!

My contribution to the event was a comedy skit I wrote and directed, starring all my young nieces and nephews. It was about how my parents met, the situation around the first wedding 65 years ago, and the births of all ten children. The funny part was during her "labor," you could hear my "Mom" screaming "Huli na ito" but then again, it was repeated nine more times. We didn't have time to rehearse or have a dry run so we did it with scripts in hand, but all in all, it was fun.

More to come.

Bert's Trip to the Philippines, Part 1

Blah, blah, blah, I mean, Blog, blog, blog...

(I intermittently used some Tagalog words, for emphasis, character and color. Also, I just made up all the names to protect the guilty. Mind you, this narrative is for entertainment only, and my facts and figures are not verified. And to satisfy all those people who are always looking for mistakes, I intentionally left some. [Editor's Note: Not if I can help it!] What a gimmick!)

March 15/16, 2007 LAX

My low lights were at the beginning of the trip. As soon as I fell in line at the PAL counter at LAX, one of the passengers in line informed me at once that the flight would be delayed by three hours. Some of them even snickered about the "true" meaning of PAL, Plane Always Late. (I didn't mind it as much, since it was a lot better than the flight the day before where my sister and her family were on board--it didn't take off until the following day.) Anyway, the airline was gracious enough to give us a voucher for $8 to cover dinner that night since the flight would not leave until one o'clock the following morning, a three-hour delay. $8 elsewhere is enough money for dinner on the go, but not at the airport. It will buy you a decent enough dinner, but you have to fork over money for the drinks, which was close to three bucks for a bottle of Diet Coke. What the heck, I was on vacation. What's a few dollars, right?

It must have been a conspiracy--I am not so sure--for all 400+ of us waiting at the terminal for the plane to get ready. The conspiracy I'm talking about is the closeness of the duty free shops next to the waiting lounge. I forked over another $27 dollars for a carton of Marlboro, pasalubong sa mga smokers sa pamilya ko doon. (I found out later, they don't care anymore for Blue Seal cigarettes, local brands will do. Oh well!) In a span of three hours, more and more passengers were buying goodies. I asked the saleslady what time the shop closed and she answered she would stay open as long as there are passengers. Not a bad marketing strategy.

More frustrations.

Anyway, when it was time to board, they had four big buses that transported passengers from the terminal to the airplane which was ten minutes away. The bus ride was so long, it seemed, I thought we were at Burbank by then. Even though they were boarding passengers by seat numbers, that system did not work out the way it was intended to be. Because some of the buses were bigger than the others, it took longer to fill up. The smaller ones that were assigned later got filled first, and took off first. And when the buses arrived, they were almost at the same time, and when the passengers queued up to the hallway leading to the plane, the order was no longer valid. It was at this time I started to make notes, mental and written, of what my experiences would be. Seriously, one of them was--not to fly PAL anymore.

Tips to future PAL passengers or any 747 riders (to make a short story long):

Have your travel agent secure a plane seat for you when he or she books your flight right away. This will get you the best seat in the house--which in this case, is the second section (after the first class) maybe seats from rows 20 to 37.

And as far as seats go, aisle C and H are NOT good when you plan to watch movies, because passengers and flight attendants are always in the aisles, blocking your view of the big screen. Good aisle seats are D and G. Remind you, this only matters when you are in the second section. The plane's seat configurations are different on other sections. Also, the second section is one of the first ones to deplane, after the first class and business class. (I figured out why they charge so much for the seats at first class section: THEY ARRIVE FIRST, after the pilots. Get it?)

In fairness to the employees of Philippine Air Lines, I found all of them to be courteous, kind, professionals, and good-natured. All of the hard feelings I had before boarding were replaced with awe and delight of unimaginable stages as I witnessed how patient they were doing their work over and above what was required, from my point of view. And mind you, it has nothing to do with the attendant assigned to our section who was not only attentive and always with a smile, but also pretty and sexy. I tell you, if I were only single, younger and richer, I would have asked Josephine to marry me.

More next time.

Why we're writing this blog

When I was in the eighth grade, I decided that I wanted to be a writer. I went through high school and college with this career path in mind, not entirely sure of how to start doing it, or what tools I would need. I got my B.A. in English because my parents were paying for it and because I figured that with a general English degree, I could learn about different types of fiction and how to write it.

Around the same time, the Internet started to gain mainstream popularity, to the point of where I was able to convince my parents to get us a computer so I could surf the 'net to keep up with my various geek-related hobbies. We had several fights over my hogging of the phone lines at night, and my dad took to email with a rapidity that astonished me.

I've always known that my dad was a creative guy. He used to paint when I was younger, and I remember one day where I got into his oil paints and accidentally ate half a tube of black. Man, was he pissed. He tried his hand at sculpture, and got two of his pieces into the Brea Art Gallery. The last time I was home for Christmas, he was still working in collages, sculpture, and of course, in words.

See, what I didn't realize until a few years ago is that my dad is an amazing writer. He's always been funny with his college buddies telling jokes; he's just as funny (and possibly a bit corny) in his writing. He started writing long missives to his friends and the rest of our large extended family, and gained a small following.

If there's one thing that my dad and I always clash on, it's the fact that he wants me to become a successful writer. "Why don't you just write a book?" he always asks, and I always tell him that I'm not ready to, I'm not skilled enough, I don't have time... a myriad of excuses that we both know are bullshit. In truth, I'm scared and I don't know how to convey that to him.

At the same time, I know that he's wanted to become a published writer, too. He wrote two songs that he tried to get on the radio, he tried writing a children's book for my niece, he's tried to get into magazines. Living in New York City, I know what an uphill battle he's got ahead of him if he wants to gain credibility.

So last Christmas, I decided to give my dad the gift of publishing. After doing some research into the free blogger systems out there, I decided to get him an account here so that I could upload his stories (edit his grammar a little bit) and the world could see just what a great writer my dad is.

The reason why I'm uploading his stories rather than him doing it himself is that a) we live 3,000 miles apart and I don't trust in my ability to teach him how to use this blog over the phone and b) he wants me to polish up his grammar to acceptable levels of English. I've pretty much left his text alone, except for changing some verb tenses and adding particles of speech where they usually should go. All the phrases in Tagalog I've left intact because I don't know what they mean (and that's a blog entry for a different day).

Every other day or so, I'll either put up a new story or dig one up from his vast archives. I might pop in and contribute an article or two, but only if I think it really relates to what he's talking about.

I hope you enjoy my dad's work.

A set of three important words

I never thought I was capable of saying them. Several years ago, it would have been unheard of. From me, anyway.

"Tama na po!"

I bet you are thinking of what context these three words were used. I bet too that some of you might even been thinking of something naughty. Well, to set the records straight from the beginning, here is the story.

I was in West Covina, one late morning last week to purchase a balikbayan box. West Covina is now one of the hubs of Filipino activities in Southern California, with lots of big supermarkets, restaurants, bakeries, small stores, banks, and other remittances offices. I got hungry after I acquired the box, and Toto's Lechon was just around the corner. Time for an early lunch.

The array of trays of foods are mouth-watering, more so if you are hungry. The grill is right there behind the counter, so you can smell the delicious aroma of burning meat, like barbecued chicken and pork chops. The smoke goes up the vent, but some is left inside the store, to permeate to the unconscious mind the idea of a home-cooked meal.

The two-course combination lunch costs around five dollars. Before I made my selection, the lady scooped two heaping full ladles of rice on my plate, then added some more. Normally, I would have welcomed that generosity. I like rice. No, I love rice!

And that's when I said: "Tama na po." "Isang sandok lang."

Still reverberating in my mind were all the comments and greetings bestowed upon me by friends and relatives I had not seen for quite sometime during my last vacation in March to the Philippines.

"Ang taba mo!" Oh, there's another three words.

When I was growing up, it was a nice thing to say--a compliment really, because it meant you were not starving, or you were eating healthy. Being payat then was synonymous to a lack of healthy food, or just plain food. The rich people were mataba, the poor, payat.

But maybe not so anymore nowadays. Maybe I was just mataba. Period.

Well, probably so. I gained five more pounds while I was on vacation. So, one of the things I promised to do was lose a few pounds when I got back. I remembered when my first daughter got married, I went into a diet mode. Hundreds of pictures were going to be taken, not to mention the video of the ceremonies and reception. By simply eating less, with the same daily activities without joining any exercise facilities, I was able to get down to my desirable weight.

This time is a different story though. It's much harder to lose weight because of my age. My metabolism is down. I don't burn as many calories as before. And maybe, I am not as active as before too.

Anyway, the lady with the ladle gave herself a quiet smile. Or maybe it was a grin. I didn't ask why. I just assumed she had the idea that rice causes my weight problem. Or she was happy that there would be more rice for others. Or maybe she asked herself why I did not offer to cut down on the pork chop and lumpia. What? Sira ba ang ulo niya?

Anyway, in a span of six weeks, I lost ten pounds. I weigh myself everyday, sometimes morning, afternoon and evening. I eat more fruits and vegetables. More fish and chicken. Less rice and bread. I cut down also on soda. Eat the same amount of nuts. Consume the same amount of wine. But basically, I just eat less. No more second servings. No more evening snacks while watching TV. Sometimes, I can not believe my self. I found self-control!

Would it have something to do with my chest pains lately? Or the stories I heard about friends and relatives having strokes or heart attacks? Or the constant reminders from my better half? Or maybe both.

Today, while waiting for the doctor in the private waiting room for my three-month follow up- checkup, I noticed a poster on the wall. It gave the ideal weight for a person's height. Something that has to do with body fat ratio. Mine, at five feet seven inches, I should be 153 pounds at the heaviest. Wow, is that right? I have another thirteen pounds to go?

I had the urge to rip that poster off the wall right then and there. And when I calmed down and mellowed out, I thought of another way to combat this angry feeling. I took out my pen and wrote on one corner of the poster the initials ATM. And this I hope will be my rallying cry to succeed.

Wish me luck with my new ATM motto: "Ang Taba Mo."